My mind has been on two things the past couple weeks. As I am sure with many of you, the aftermath of the shootings at Covenant School has occupied a number of conversations around here. Mostly, my pastoral conversations have been with non-members, some from the neighborhood, some from around the wider area here, discussing the “where’s God?” questions, and all that goes with that question, as well as offering the liturgy we observed last Tuesday, where a number of non-Adventers joined us in person or online to complain to God, repent, ask for healing, and then to be reminded of His sacred pledge to each of us in the Eucharist. Given that we were nearing the end of Lent, Holy Week, and today, the timing has caused people to touch on any number of related questions.
While my
professional work has been consumed with those questions, my personal has had
questions of a different sort. Many of
you gathered here today know I have seven kids, all of whom at one time or
another lived in Iowa, where they learned to like, if not love, growing things
to eat! Long time Adventers got to hear
younger McVey’s ask what was wrong with the dirt in Tennessee years ago. In Iowa, one need only worry about the length
of the growing season to make things grow and produce. Annuals like asparagus grew every season with
their seeds simply dropping in the fall at harvest time. But my family definitely caught the gardening
bug living in that part of the world.
Like any
family where gardeners are present, there’s a bit of negotiating and
planning. Nathan and David LOVE hot
peppers. I mean LOVE. The hotter the better. Hannah loves herbs for cooking and
strawberries. I love tomatoes. Well, what I really love in the summer time
is fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella.
Over pasta. With croutons. In a bowl.
You get the idea. And now you are
really confused, right? How is this guy
going to connect the Covenant shooting and gardening? See, I am not as dumb as I look. But, in truth, I will not do the connecting. If I do my job today, you will see the
connection. You will see the connection
with that evil and every other evil because the Holy Spirit will be working in
each of us to lead us into all truth.
Our passage
from John today occurs near the end of his Gospel. Nearly everyone here today is familiar with
John’s Gospel. We read the prologue of
John’s Gospel on Christmas Eve when we light our candles from the Paschal
candle at the midnight service, reminding us that the Light has come into the
world and we are, as the image of the liturgy reminds us, all flickering
candle-like lights of His. God, I see
nods. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God and the Word was God! We are reminded that what we remember this past
week was not a surprise to God. The
events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week did not catch Him unawares. As Paul reminds us elsewhere, Christ was
slain before the foundation of the world.
John’s Gospel begins with a look back to that initial creation we read
in Genesis, even as it tells us that what is happening with the birth of Jesus
is the beginning of the New Creation.
It is, of
course, hard for Christians, and Christian-adjacent folks, to think of Creation
and not remember the Garden. In fact,
the Creation story is far more theological in nature rather than biological or
geo-physical. What do I mean? Genesis was not written to teach us what
dinosaur bones are fake or that science is deserving of scorn. Genesis makes the theological claim that God
created all that is, seen and unseen, from nothing. He spoke all things into being, including
human beings. Men and women were placed
in the Garden where they had unfettered access to God.
What do we
mean by unfettered access? Well,
Protestant me would remind us all that Adam and Eve called God by His real
name, Andy. You know, and He walks with
me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I’m one of His own. See, choir, it’s a good old Protestant
joke. I had too many lapsed Romans at
the first service for anyone to have laughed.
On a serious note, though, Adam and Eve literally walked and talked with
God. . . all the time. They could ask
Him whatever crossed their minds. Lord,
I don’t mean to question Your thinking, but what’s up with the platypus? Why do the stars have so many different
colors? Why do some stars seem to
wander, but others follow circular patterns?
Imagine, all those questions that pop into your mind being able to
ask Him!
Eventually,
though, Adam and Eve were seduced by Satan’s whisper. Does God REALLY want what’s best for
you? I mean. . . look at that Tree. Doesn’t that fruit look juicy and yummy? From that moment, humanity has been dealing
with what some call a God-shaped hole.
We want desperately to know we are loved, heard, valued, and the
like. We create all kinds of idols to
convince ourselves of our worth, of our value.
We seek our value and worth in things which, in truth, lead us further
from God. Put more bluntly, we find
ourselves wandering further and further from the Garden and the intimate
relationship offered by God.
John,
though, reminded us God was not surprised by any of it. He came into the world, into what was His
own and was rejected. The world
chooses darkness rather that the Light.
Christmas Eve services are so full of hope, so full of wonder and
expectation, that we forget that part of John’s prologue. We forget that the little Babe in a manger
will grow to be rejected, betrayed, tortured, crucified, and die. We have a cognitive dissonance with the
reality that the One for whom we shout last week, “Crucify Him,” begins in that
manger scene of Silent Night.
And make no
mistake, we can never get back to the relationship by our own efforts, our own
desires, or, to use the language of our Protestant forebears, our own
works. What’s worse, if we can speak
anthropomorphically of God for just a brief moment today, were we to somehow
bridge the chasm on our own efforts, God would destroy us because of our
sin. Think about the times in Scripture
when His people complain He is far away.
Why? God destroys sin in much the
same way you or I breathe or blink. It
is autonomic, to use nervous system language.
God withdraws from His people time and time again to avoid destroying
them, not because He is a cosmic meanie.
Time and time and time again, His people sin and refuse to repent. Were He to stay among them, He would destroy
them by His very presence, much as you or I blink or breathe. His removal of His presence is an act of
grace and mercy and a warning. We love
to remind people that God is love, and He is; but God is also just; God is also
holy; God is also a number of revealed characteristics we esteem. All of them met on the Cross during Good
Friday. We sinned. Justice demands a death consequence. He loved us.
Love demands He willed Himself to stay on that Cross for each one of us.
Each one of
you gathered here likely knows this on some level. When in your life has God felt the farthest
from you? When have you noticed that God
did not seem as close as He does at other times in your life? If God is unchanging, guess who changes? And the only change we need to make when we
find ourselves at a distance from God?
Repentance. The moment we cry to
Him we want to change, He is right back beside us. Guiding us.
Nurturing us. Loving us. Sanctifying us for His purposes. John understood this when He wrote the Gospel
that bears His name. God kicked us out
of the Garden not because He was a meanie, but because He wanted us to know
that He was trustworthy, that He truly loved us and wants what is best for us.
Look to the
end of the Gospel from where we read this morning. Where do the events occur? Hmmmm.
That’s right. You can say
it. A garden. I heard a couple empty tombs, but that tomb
is in a garden. Re-Creation begins in a
garden. When does Mary Magdalene arrive
at the garden? Hmmm. Isn’t that weird, in darkness. Just like in the beginning of Genesis. She sees the stone rolled away and supposes
that someone has taken her Lord’s body.
And she runs to tell the Apostles and disciples.
These
giants of the faith are so smart and have everything so well-figured out, they
accept her testimony, right? Good. Some of you paid attention to the story. Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved run
to the tomb to see for themselves. What
do they see? The disciple whom Jesus
loved peeks in the tomb and sees linen wrappings lying there. That disciple waits, though, until Peter
catches up and goes in. They see the
linen wrappings and the head covering rolled up in a place by itself. Hmm.
This does not look like the actions of grave-robbers. Who takes the time to clean up after
themselves when they are robbing a grave?
Then we are told they believe, but what do they believe? The next half verse makes it clear that they
did not yet understand that Scriptures, that He must rise from the dead? Do they believe Mary’s assumption that
someone stole Jesus’ Body? We are not
told. We are told, however, that they
did as yet not believe He was risen from the dead.
The guys
head back to the other disciples, but Mary stays in the garden as the sun
continues to rise. And as the sun
continues to brighten the day, she encounters two angles in white. They ask her why she is weeping. She answers.
She came to care for the Body of her Lord, but she cannot even offer Him
that kind of service because the Body has been moved. She turns and sees a figure. The figure asks whom she seeks and why she is
weeping. She assumes it is the
gardener. So she asks him if he knows
where they have taken His Body. Jesus
calls her by name. She knows His voice,
as do all His sheep. And she cries out
“Teacher!” To us it might seem a weird
identifier, given the lack of esteem we give our own educators in this country,
but Jesus was counter-cultural in that He allowed women to study under
Him. Rabbis did not do that in 1st
Century Israel. But Jesus taught the
women as well as the men who chose to follow Him.
For her
part, Mary apparently clings to Jesus.
He instructs her to let Him go, that He is ascending to the Father—we
will talk more about that as we get closer to Ascension and Pentecost. For now, He instructs her to go and tell the
disciples that He is ascending, which she does!
Notice the disbelief still present?
Does anyone other than Mary comprehend what has happened? No!
Dead men do not rise from tombs.
Death is THE darkness we cannot overcome.
Again, my
friends, we all know this. We know there
is lots of darkness and THE darkness.
For three years now, we have been living with the effects of a
pandemic. All of us likely know someone
who has died from COVID. All of us now
know what it is like to be part of a learning process in medicine, lab rats of
a sort. Never mind the mistakes that
happened because we had to learn how to protect ourselves on the fly, all of us
know the social unrest caused by the misinformation being spread about
vaccinations. All of us know how certain
businesses stole funds intended to keep people afloat as the pandemic raged at
its highest mortality levels. Many of us
know the exhaustion of our healthcare workers – that’s why we pray for them
weekly here. And many of us know
individuals who suffer from the isolation that helped slow the spread of the
disease. So much darkness for three
years, and I have not exhausted it.
For a year
now, we have watched Russia attack a nation that was full of their
cousins. For months, Ukrainians told the
West that Russia would not attack. To
them, it was as preposterous as our Canadian neighbors worrying about us
attacking them. But look what happened. Destruction.
Death. Torture. Rape.
Kidnapping. And far too many “bad
guys” had no idea why they were sent or what they were supposed to do. And how many of us have worried that nuclear
war is the closest it has been in decades?
Would anyone gathered here really be shocked to awaken to news that
Putin nuked Ukraine?
As if that
is not enough, halfway around the world, a potential similar event could take
place any day. China and Taiwan continue
to escalate their own issues. Wargamers
and others are actively expecting there to be a battle between the United
States and China before it’s all said and done.
I suppose we can take some comfort that India occupies some of China’s
attention on its western border.
And lest we
forget, North Korea is waving their hands from time to time reminding us “hey,
we have nuclear missiles and we just might use them! Don’t forget about us!”
At least
the darkness is only geopolitical, right?
Oh, wait. Our politicians do not
govern as we elect them. They look for
soundbites and zingers rather than solutions, their goals being to line their
pockets and to win the next election.
Inflation
has raged this last year. Many of us
gathered here are economically privileged, but we notice the effects on our
wallets and our bank accounts. Imagine
being those whom we serve through our ministries. Imagine that you were barely getting by
before the pandemic hit. Imagine where
you would be today! More darkness.
Locally, of
course, we are still in the darkness as a community surrounding the shootings
at Covenant. Families lost children and
adult loved ones. First responders now
live with sights no one should see.
Medical professionals have that frustration of ramping up for action, to
put all the training and practice to heroic use, only to see there was nothing
to be done. So, much darkness.
But at
least our state politicians are trying to govern rather than score political
points, right?
Even here
at Advent, we experienced a bit more. A
beloved patriarch of the parish died a couple weeks ago. Dick lived an amazing life. He was a healer, a missionary, a friend, and
a discipler. A number of Adventers learned
about their own gifts for ministry through Dick’s gentle guidance and
prayer. And though we recognize his
death was a release from the dementia, we know his family misses him; heck,
most Adventers miss him. So much
darkness.
It is for
all those dark reasons, but especially THE dark reason we call death that we
are all gathered this morning in the garden of re-Creation. Like Mary and Peter, we find ourselves at the
garden in darkness, wondering if it is true, hoping it is true, maybe even
scoffing that it is too hard to believe.
Dead men do not rise from the dead!
It is impossible!
I get
it. Better still, God gets it. Mary and Peter and Paul and all the other
disciples do not begin to get it until they experience the Risen Jesus. For the next few weeks we will talk of the
importance of Jesus eating with them, drinking with them, journeying with them,
and instructing them. And us. He will remind each one of us next week, as
we appellate Thomas with that horrible moniker, Doubting, even though every
other disciple, including us, is skeptical, doubts, that we are blessed for
believing when we have not seen.
But it is
fitting that we, in the midst of all the darknesses I named and the ones of
which you thought as the Holy Spirit prompted you, that we gather in a garden,
that we remind ourselves that God is in the business of redemption. And because He has overcome THE darkness,
death, through which none of us can see this morning, we can trust that He has
power and desire to overcome all the darknesses in our lives, that He might be
glorified in each one of us who call Him Father, who call Him Lord. And, as one of those original skeptics, actually
a persecutor of those who first came to believe that Jesus was truly raised
from the dead reminds us this morning, when He is finally revealed and returns
in judgment on the glorious Day, we who call upon Him, who call Him Lord of our
lives, will be revealed with Him in His glory!
We will shine, not like those flickering candles we light on the night
He entered into the world, but with His Light that drives all darkness, all
tears, all suffering, from all creation!
That is His promise and our hope!
In His Peace,
Brian†
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